


Amas Veritas

by QuillerQueen



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Modern AU, Practical Magic AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-11-26 11:36:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18180098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuillerQueen/pseuds/QuillerQueen
Summary: Regina once enacted a spell to protect herself from the heartbreak generations of Mills women have had to endure. The true love she didn't think could ever exist enters her life in the most inopportune time, just as she strives to protect her sister from an undead lover and elude charges of the murder she not only committed but which Detective Locksley is there to investigate.





	Amas Veritas

_He will hear my call a world away._  
_He will step out of a storybook._  
_He can split an arrow from nock to point._  
_He calls the forest home._  
_He’ll be marvelously kind._  
_And his favourite tree...will be the oak.  
_ _And he’ll have...dimples in his cheeks...and a lion on his arms._

Regina remembers it well, every single word—Amas Veritas, the true love spell she invoked as a girl to protect herself from heartbreak, to outwit and elude the dark magic that cuts short the lives of men the Mills women fall in love with.

Daniel was nothing like the man she’d described to flower petals spiraling skyward on a balmy summer night many years ago. Outdoorsy and kind, very much so—but that’s where the similarities ended. But oh, how she loved him. She loved him as they raced on horseback in the spring, loved him when they cloudgazed on a picnic blanket in summer. She vowed to love him till death do them part in the fall. The curse came for him in the winter, when Regina’s belly had just started to grow, and snatched Daniel from them forever.

She’s been on the run again ever since, from the wretched curse that took and took so much—and how come, when Daniel hadn’t even fit the impossible image Regina’s incantation had conjured up?

This man, however…

Detective Robin Locksley has winking dimples and a legendary name. She can’t be sure how good a shot he is, but Henry’s already established archery is a favourite pastime of his. And if that weren’t enough, a glimpse of black ink on his forearm reveals a damn lion tattoo of all things.

He’s dangerous.

And not only because he’s here to investigate the murder Regina and her sister had most definitely committed.

Hades Agesander lies buried in their garden, his place of non-rest marked by a blanket of white asphodels that have sprung up overnight and refuse to be eradicated. Zelena still shudders at the very thought of her undead lover, betrayed by the hand that invariably flies to touch the bruise Hades had branded her with. The shock hasn’t worn off yet (and how could it, what with the quick succession of abuse followed by rescue-turned-abduction, murder, and Hades’ resurrection as a mere shadow, a demon from hell).

Regina needs to handle this, needs to be strong for the both of them.

* * *

She lets Robin Locksley into her greenhouse and watches him identify every single plant on a search for the deadly belladonna he clearly doesn’t expect to find anyway. He speaks softly to her despite the frustration lacing his voice. He holds her eyes the whole time, and seems to see more than he has any business to.

“What’s the verdict, then?” she says. “Am I a murderer?”

“I’m not a judge, Regina. My job is to find the truth, to serve justice—and I will.” And then, not without kindness: “Let me help you.”

“You can’t.”

It’s not what he came here for.

Or perhaps it is. She had whispered a plea for help while leafing through an ancient spellbook in search of answers. Perhaps he did hear her a world away—all the way in Cleveland, the fucking Forest City he resides in.

“Do what you must, Detective,” she tells him, and then, for some unfathomable reason: “So did I.”

It’s as good as a confession between them, if not one that would hold up in court.

He should run now that he knows who he’s dealing with, take his scrutinising look and go. He shouldn’t be agreeing to have breakfast with them, and she shouldn’t be letting Henry extend such dangerous invitations.

Zelena shouldn’t be fuming right now because her carefully crafted plan to poison the righteous detective has been thwarted by her own reckless sister.

But Regina doesn’t want him harmed.

Even if it means she’s going down.

* * *

 

She’s definitely going down, one way or the other.

“Do you seek justice, Robin? Or do you serve the law?”

He says nothing but holds the door of his room open for her, and the moment she crosses the threshold there’s no going back.

She’s been running from the curse her whole life. It’s caught up with her anyway, again, she knows it has when she grabs him by the jacket and crashes their lips together.

He smells like forest, and it all feels...right.

* * *

When Hades comes back for Zelena, Regina is ready to fight for her sister.

The small town rallies around them, blessedly, miraculously. Finally.

It takes everything they have and almost costs a life, but they come through. Evil is banished, the curse has been broken, and relief floods in like a tidal wave.

Still there is one more battle to be fought, only the battlefield is Detective Locksley's conscience, where his code of honour is its own worst enemy. It doesn't take long, even though the wait feels interminable.

Hades’ death is declared an accident—for what’s lawful is not always what’s just.

All Hallows’ Eve marks Regina’s first public leap from the mansion’s polished roof as Robin beams up at her with those dastardly dimples—and it will mark many anniversaries to come.

And that is no accident.

It’s magic of its very own kind.


End file.
